Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Considering all the off-the-wall stuff I say in the videos, I don’t get that much negative email, but one of the more common complaints is, “Dude, where’s the Indian food?” Well, this succulent and spicy lamb shank vindaloo is for you!

I have very little experience
cooking Indian food, so that this came out as deliciously as it did is nothing
short of amazing. That said, I’m sure you Goan cuisine “experts” will let me
know how to make this even better next time.

The name “vindaloo” comes
from a Portuguese dish called "Vinha d' Alhos," which is basically
pork stewed with wine and garlic. After being introduced to India, the wine
became vinegar, chicken and lamb replaced the pork, and many local spices and
chilies were added…other than that, it’s exactly the same.

This is almost always done
with cubes or chunks of meat, but I decided to go with the very user-friendly
lamb shank instead. Portioning is simple, as one
shank feeds one person, but what’s even more exciting for the novice cook is
the fact that this is almost impossible to mess up. Simply simmer on low until
the meat is fork tender. That’s it! I hope you give this very tasty lamb curry
dish a try soon. Enjoy!

Ingredients for 4 Portions:

4 lamb shanks

For the marinade:

1/2 cup cider vinegar

1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 tbsp tamarind concentrate
(I’ve never used tamarind before, so I’m not sure how this would convert to
fresh or tamarind pulp, but I’m sure there are people that know!)

29 comments:

juice
said...

Chef now that you have ventured into the world of tamarind, would you do a restaurant style pad thai recipe? There are a few recipes online that taste ok, but none that replicate the taste from my local Thai place.

Hi Chef John! My husband and I LOVE following your videos on new adventures in the kitchen. You make for great dates and delicious meals! We're excited to try this Indian recipe. How much brown sugar do you recommend? Thank you so much!

Looks great chef. I've never tried vindaloo and now I'm inspired to give it a shot. Two things you may want to experiment witih:

1) Add about 1/2 teaspoon of Asafoetida Powder when you fry spices with the onion. I've seen this brand in Indian stores in California. This stuff is pungent and will make your cupboard smell, so try to store it away from other foods.

2) I'm not sure if it will work for this particular recipe, but often Indian recipes call for 'tempering', which seems analogous to finishing a sauce with butter. For instance, heat mustard seeds and fresh curry leaves in ghee until the seeds pop, then garnish your dish with it. Fresh curry leaves are amazing, you should probably buy some regardless.

We here in Britain love our curries, and alot of "indian" cuisine was actually borne from demand for ever hotter and hotter curries in the UK; in order of increasing heat, a general rule of thumb goes: Madras < Tindaloo < Vindaloo < Nag < Phall (this being the hottest).

You may wonder, if these are essentially British dishes, why they have exotic sounding names? The answer, at least with respect to the "Phall" is that it is Onomatopoeic - the name of the dish is similar to the sound that it makes...

...as in, you have one bite of it, and all you can say is "Phall....."

To add to a long list of suggestions that will surely come....while puréeing makes a nice sauce, the puréed onion mixture doesn't caramelize as well as chopped onions (too much water?) and so sometimes people take the extra effort of sautéeing the onions and then either cooking it covered until they "melt" or puréeing them once browned.

Good to see you skimming the fat off the top, they don't seem to believe in this practice at Bengal Bennys Balti and Bhaji Emporium, so after you've finished your meal and gone home, you feel like you've grown a third buttock down the back of your underpants. While I'm here I might as well sing the praises of the finest Indian dish ever conceived in a grease pit on the outskirts of Thanet, Sag Aloo. A fantastic dish, perfect starter before a Lamb Shank Vindaloo in fact. Excellent post.

I'm rather glad that you don't do a lot of Indian cuisine. It always contains cilantro (coriander leaves). Somewhere between 5-15% of people with northern European ancestry and an unknown percentage of Africans cannot tolerate cilantro.

To us, it tastes the way a dead stinkbug smells, mixed with a little bit of dishwashing liquid. Truly horrible. And it is apparently in 100% of Indian food.

I love Indian food, authentic or not and have terra-formed my kitchen and pantry to take advantage. I like this preparation though I think I'll go with some whole black mustard and black cumin in the dry spice mix. And I have goat shanks in the freezer that might be just perfect...

I don't think anyone said "you should have done it this way." That wasn't the intent of my post, at least. My intent was to have John try a few ingredients and then come back and tell us how to make delicious things.

Chef John - I am originally from India. Growing up vindaloo was one of those dishes that was never cooked at home, but eaten at restaurants. It is originally from the western state of Goa, which was a Portuguese colony.

While we cook pork vindaloo from Madhur Jaffrey's cookbook now at home, here is a recipe on the web from a former restaurant chef in India - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E3kulJRzGY

I think Chef John will like this guy's slightly over the top style.

On a different note, we made your lamb shish kaburger for 40+ people on our July 4th party, and even in that large quantity, it was a tremendous success. The combination of garam masala, sambal olek, yogurt, crushed almonds, and other ingredients just is perfect!

Looks like a good vindaloo.I wouldn't worry about the "authentic police" too much,John.There's a hundred ways to cook everything.I've seen vindaloo done half a dozen different ways even in my limited experience.I think the recipe changes from house to house.Mine is a bit different then this,but your looks more presentable.On a totally positive note;I was watching this while my husband was getting ready for work and now he's taking me on a date to our favorite Indian joint.Thanks my man!

I have been meaning to write to you ever since i found you on allreceipes.com.

I am from Ethiopia originally and pretty much grew up here for the past 10 years. I love to cook and most of the time the recipes i find are a bit complicated and not as easy and fast to cook. The day i discovered your blogpost, i have been blessed. I just love the way you record your cookings! So fast, clean, simple, elegant, enticing, entertaining, and simply exceptionally done! I am attempting to cook some of your recipes today and sometime this week.

Hands down you have the best blogpost, cooking/teaching style, voice, humor...every package. I love your work and i will be voting for you from this day forth! You're an inspiration.

I have one favor to ask you as well. I have the worst and oldest pots and pans ever! I am willing to invest and buy a good one now. Is there any brand you recommend, style, type etc? I really need your help on that. What do you use by the way?

Yes, it can be done in a pressure cooker. I did a batch of five lamb vindaloo shanks the other day. I cooked for 25 min, I checked it, it wasn't done, I cooked it for another 25 min and it turned out great.

Today though, I sort of burnt it. I think for two reasons. First, there was less liquid going in. Second, I kept the temperature on high the entire time. The reason I did this was that the needle weight was slowly spinning on medium, but this time would only spin around on high. I guess I should always turn the heat down to medium low? I will investigate.

Yes, it can be done in a pressure cooker. I did a batch of five lamb vindaloo shanks the other day. I cooked for 25 min, I checked it, it wasn't done, I cooked it for another 25 min and it turned out great.

Today though, I sort of burnt it. I think for two reasons. First, there was less liquid going in. Second, I kept the temperature on high the entire time. The reason I did this was that the needle weight was slowly spinning on medium, but this time would only spin around on high. I guess I should always turn the heat down to medium low? I will investigate.